Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)

Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue. The opera was recorded in full by the composer in 1966, but it had to wait until April 2011, the centenary of the composer's birth, for a complete theatrical performance (there was an abridged stage production in 1982 and a concert version in 2010).

The libretto was by Herrmann's first wife, Lucille Fletcher, based on the first part of Emily Brontë's novel of the same name. Fletcher also interpolated some text from the second part of the novel, and from some unrelated poems by Emily Brontë (such as "I have been wandering through the Green Woods"). By the time the work was finished, Fletcher and Herrmann had divorced and he had married her cousin Lucy.

Although the work is largely unknown, Lucille Fletcher said it was "perhaps the closest to his talent and heart".

Herrmann started work on the opera in April 1943, while composing the film score for Jane Eyre (an adaptation of Jane Eyre by Emily Brontë's sister Charlotte Brontë). It received a boost in 1946, when Herrmann and Fletcher made a visit to the moor country near Manchester, while he was fulfilling conducting engagements with the Hallé Orchestra. There, they visited the Brontë home at Haworth.

He completed the composition in Minneapolis. On the score, Herrmann wrote that he finished the work at 3:45 pm on 30 June 1951.

Wuthering Heights was never staged in Herrmann's lifetime, despite a number of attempts on his part. One of the few opportunities to mount a staged production during Herrmann's lifetime was one offered by Julius Rudel, but either because Rudel insisted on cuts and a different, up-beat ending, which the composer refused to permit, or because of scheduling challenges – sources differ on the details – the production did not eventuate. It had earlier been under consideration by Sir John Barbirolli, conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, but a perusal of the enormous score caused him to reconsider. It was also briefly considered by the San Francisco Opera, as a project for Leopold Stokowski to conduct, but he was unavailable so the idea was dropped. In 1957, the Heidelberg Opera considered staging it, and Herrmann was convinced it was going ahead, even believing that the contracts had been signed for an April 1958 performance – but it too was dropped.

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